I have evangelical family members who would probably have a stroke if they read the title of a recent article in the Christian Century by Michael Woolf. I can hear the exclamation "heretical!" echoing from south of the border. I found this piece really worthwhile and so I'll share some of it so you can decide. I don't need to take the account in the Qur'an literally to ponder the respect and reverence for May expressed here.
If I see a torch-carrying mob enter our suburban court anytime soon I'll know that you don't share my appreciation of these thoughts!
Reading the Qur’an at Christmastide: God seems more real to me when I encounter other traditions on what God is like.
In the season of Advent and the days after Christmas, I typically tell Christians who are wanting to dive deeper into texts about Jesus’ birth to give the Qur’an a try. Not only is Jesus treated with reverence in the text, but facts like the virgin birth are even retained in the Qur’anic telling. In this season of the holy birth, the Qur’an even gives us a Jesus who speaks from the cradle and a Mary with even more importance than the biblical narrative.
That advice is usually met with a mix of skepticism and surprise, as Christians are not used to looking outside of their tradition for meaningful reflections on their most sacred figures. Yet, I have found as a pastor and a theologian that it is precisely by looking at other faiths and learning from them that we can come to better appreciate our own stories, even developing some of what Krister Stendahl and Barbara Brown Taylor call “holy envy.”
For such an important figure in Christianity, Mary gets startlingly little time at the narrative center of the Bible. It’s a little different in the Qur’an; Mary even has her own chapter called Surrah Maryam, the only chapter named for a woman. Jesus is even identified as the “son of Mary” in the Qur’an (Q 19:34), a subversion of the typical patriarchal naming patterns that we see in the Bible.
While the chapter features plenty of the most familiar events in the lead-up to the birth of Jesus, it also tells stories that Christians are likely to be unfamiliar with. In fact, the chapter features one of the most beautiful interactions between the Divine and humans that I have ever encountered:
She wondered, “How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me, nor am I unchaste?” He replied, “So will it be! Your Lord says, ‘It is easy for Me. And so will We make him a sign for humanity and a mercy from Us.’ It is a matter ˹already˺ decreed.” So she conceived him and withdrew with him to a remote place. Then the pains of labour drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She cried, “Alas! I wish I had died before this, and was a thing long forgotten!” So a voice reassured her from below her, “Do not grieve! Your Lord has provided a stream at your feet. And shake the trunk of this palm tree towards you, it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon you. So eat and drink, and put your heart at ease." - (Q 19: 20-26)
One of the things that is missing from the biblical account of Jesus’ birth is his actual birth and Mary’s labor, but here it is made central. Moreover, God’s essential character is revealed to be compassionate. Not only does God tend to our souls, but also our bodies. The one for whom it is easy to do the miraculous does not look past our embodied nature, but instead embraces it and cares for us in ways that are perhaps more tender than we are used to in the Bible. That makes the characters of scripture less removed from our everyday human experience and connects us to them in exciting ways.
At Christmastide, I always like to read such stories in worship as dialogue partners for our lectionary readings, and one in particular always feeds my sense of awe.
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